China’s dominant taxi hailing app launches carpooling feature, signs up 1M drivers

Didi Kuaidi, the dominant taxi hailing app in China from newly merged startups Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, announced today the official launch of its carpooling service. The new feature, Shun Feng Che, will focus on urban commuters starting in Beijing and roll out to 26 cities by the end of this month.

Shun Feng Che aims to make carpooling easier for commuters by drawing on the treasure trove of big data provided by the taxi hailing apps. Car owners set up their default routes, while passengers input where they want to get picked up and dropped off. The app then automatically finds matches.

“In less than two months, Shun Feng Che has recruited over 1 million car owners. From today, users are able to find someone to carpool with through the ‘Shun Feng Che’ function embedded in the Didi Dache app,” said Huang Jieli, general manager of Didi Shun Feng Che department, in the statement.

Fish in a barrel

Carpooling services can help cut down on traffic and pollution caused by too many cars on China’s city streets, but no single app has risen to become a dominant player yet. Thanks to Didi Kuaidi’s pervasiveness among China’s smartphone owners, it can easily grab market share and steamroll competitors without even creating a new app.

Moreover, Didi Kuaidi will charge no fees or commissions for carpooling. Shun Feng Che sets a base fee of RMB 5 to 10, plus 1 yuan per kilometer – almost half the price of a Beijing taxi. Passengers can pay with WeChat payment, the ewallet service built into China’s most popular messaging app. No cash allowed.

Didi Kuaidi will be competing with Uber’s not-for-profit ridesharing tier in China, People’s Uber. The service launched last August in Beijing and has since rolled out to seven cities. The company hasn’t released any metrics to show whether it’s popular or not.

Another challenger is Haha Pinche, a carpooling app that received a US$10 million series A investment last August led by Sequoia Capital and followed by Innovation Works.

Shun Feng Che orders are expected to reach 100,000 within a month and top the million mark by the end of 2015, according to the company.